School Adventures & Misfortunes
by bracken99
Summary: The beginning of 2015 marks the end of the Christmas holidays. The Dumping Ground children return to school to face the ups and downs of education. *SYOC - more details inside*


**A/N: This is going to be a SYOC. Details will be on my profile, so please check that out if you want to send a character in.**

**Characters in this story:**

**Carmen - 15  
Harry - 9  
Johnny - 16  
Tee - 14  
Tyler - 13  
Jody - 12  
Floss - 8  
Mo - 10  
Bailey - 14  
Kazima - 16  
Ryan - 14**

**Billie and Toni may be brought in during a later chapter once I get to know their characters a little more.**

**Sorry, this chapter is really short but others should be longer.**

**Prologue: **

Ryan was awoken early in time for his first morning at Ashdene Ridge. The loud, consistent ringing of what sounded like a bell had awoken him from his comfortable sleep in the spare staff room that he had successfully taken from Johnny.

Dazed and confused, he forced himself out of bed and to the door to try and work out what was going on. On his way, his gaze met the clock. The confirmation that it was only 6:30 in the morning did not enthuse him.

Opening the brown door, he glanced down the corridor to see Johnny and Mo heading his way after leaving there own rooms. Neither of them looked overly confused. Was it normal to be woken up at 6:30am in this place? If so, Ryan knew he would need to invest in some earplugs. "What's going on?" Ryan asked, stifling a yawn as they reached him. Was it a fire alarm?

"School begins again tomorrow. Mike likes us to get used to waking up early the day before. Apparently it leads to less chaos tomorrow morning. Hence the bell," Johnny replied, sending a short nod down the corridor. On this indication, Ryan turned to see Mike at the other end of the corridor with what looked like an old-fashioned school bell in hand.

"And we can't just set our own personal alarms because…?" Ryan trailed off, waiting for either Mo or Johnny to finish it off for him.

"The younger ones don't know how to and there's no point in the rest of us setting one if we're going to be woken up by this. Have you got any more questions, or can I go and get myself some breakfast now?" Without waiting for Ryan to respond, Johnny set off down the corridor heading for the stairs.

Reaching in his room to grab a jumper to pull on over his top in order to try and warm himself up, Ryan proceeded to follow Johnny's footsteps. The mention of breakfast had suddenly made him feel rather hungry.

By the time he got into the kitchen, the rest of the household were already in there, obviously used to the routine. He was briefly met by the smell of bacon which was quickly removed by the horrible smell of burnt toast coming from the toaster by which Floss was stood. May-Li was across within five seconds of the smoke alarm sounding, removing Floss' burnt toast, handing it to her then opening and closing the nearest door in an attempt to stop the high-pitched alarm from ringing.

Returning to the grill, on which the bacon was placed, May-Li caught sight of Ryan. "Bacon sandwich or toast," she offered.

"Bacon," Ryan's reply was almost instant. No matter how much jam was put onto toast, it always held a strange taste.

Surveying the kitchen, Ryan came to the conclusion that breakfast very often lead to chaos. May-Li looked posed to stop the high-pitched ringing of the smoke alarm at any minute, tomato ketchup had already been spilt on the floor when the only person to have food was Floss. Although he had learnt to see random things being placed on top of toast, Ryan could not imagine anyone putting tomato ketchup on top. Reaching the table, he received confirmation that Floss was not so strange that she did put it on toast. Why there was tomato ketchup on the floor, therefore, appeared to be a mystery to him.

Sitting down to wait at the table, a surge of recognition hit him. With the process of arriving at Ashdene Ridge and what had happened since his arrival, all sense of reality had lost him. The new calendar year marked the end of the Christmas holiday and the return to school after a break that seemed to speed past. The only good news was the fact that he would be starting at a new school with all new teachers to him and a new reputation to create. The others, meanwhile, would already have all this. For the time being, he could only wonder how the rest of their school year would pan out.


End file.
